“He may look harmless but don’t uses Eomancy as his Special Ability can steal your spell. Instead, use Combat Alkhemia.”

The man earlier cautiously warned his comrades and they went muttering amongst themselves. Looks like I can fully ascertained that I was really a target as they had information about me.

All the masked men were fully cautious and they would get too close towards me. Huh, that’s okay too since I was itching to test some spells on live humans.

[‘Eo, Altaer, Rasso, Piculum, Actus,’]

A condensed bluish in a shape of both sharp-end cylinder with shot out from the circle and went towards one of them of my right.

The unfortunate target was caught on surprise and tried to dodge but at that moment, his whole complexion turned stony and the ‘Compressed Shot’ went towards his windpipe but it didn’t cut through although it still caused him to stagger and fall.

Eomancy is quite a tricky art. It reminded me of programming. There are many rules and procedures whether the spell is made possible or not. You have to create a proper string before it can be executed or else, it simply just won’t work.

‘Compressed Arrow’ was a spell I made my own and all custom-made spells have line of personalized Ancient Words that should have high level of resonation between the words and if the resonance is high, it would make the spell viable. Afterward, it also needed the resonance of the caster and the spell to be high enough.

In short, not everyone can use my ‘Compressed Arrow’.

After I’d cast, one of them took out a flask containing two types of red and yellow liquids that were like water and oil. He flicked the top of the flask and it threw at me.

It looked like an incendiary grenade of a sort so I casted a basic Green Spell ‘Force Blast’ with [Synikorvus] and pushed it away from me. The result of the grenade blasted back was an explosion in which the thrower and the two surrounding him had frantically dodged.

When I was casting, three of them threw darts at me.

[Synikorvus] activated one of the five Kashra papers at the furthest in front of me and a wall of grey earth emerged, blocking the three darts.

When the wall of grey earth erupted, on both sides of mine, two globe-like objects had been thrown on the ground. Instead of exploding, they let out black smoke and it expanded on both sides.

I activated one of the three Kashra papers surrounding me and it caused the wind around me to circulate with me being the centre.

A cyclone consisted of the smoke whirled and I casted another Light Blue spell with an Origin Circle. It formed a vertical facing whirlpool in front of me which sucked up all the smoke as the initial spell had ended.

After all the smoked had gathered, i cancelled the channeling and quickly cast another Light Blue spell that is a combination for the previous spell. The spell finished chanted and the dispersing whirlpool burst out all the smoke that had condensed into a thick and hazy wall, it mowed down as it approached them.

They quickly covered they mouth and nose and after a few second, the smoke dispersed. A few of them were lying on the ground, frothing while five of them were standing perfectly fine.

“Idiots, at least prepare a remedy pill for your own poison…”

The leader muttered disdainfully as he glanced at the fallen.

“I’m not interrupting your one-sided massacre, Ruigne?”

A jovial and carefree voice casually spoke behind me. Out of all the summoned, Stryklos had come first.

His special ability [Invisible Legions] was on full display as all kinds of weapons float around him. Some of the weapons were bloodied. He took the liberty of collecting the various types of weapons made by Akujin. Some of them were oddly shaped like a chakram with five rings attached inside while another was a kite-shaped object. It’s either a shield or a very symmetric blade.

“I’m playing full defensive here so they technically caused their own massacre. Anyway, had some trouble along the way?”

“Yup, I had to go outside from the house because I forgot that being alive also means you get hungry so I went out and looked for food. Just as I was salivating on a certain street food stall, I heard and saw your loud firework and rushed to the location. Along the way, a few suspicious people tried to bar my way but as you can see, my weapons tasted blood but they’re not dead. They’re just near dead. Huh, these people looked a lot like those suspicious people.”

He walked step by step towards me while explaining.

“Shit, retreat!”

The leader quickly swept his right hand and ran. The rest of them quickly grabbed their fallen comrades and ran off.

“… Should we give a chase?”

“The people you… rendered unconscious, did any guards came into your way?”

“Ah, now that you mention it, after I wiped the floor, guards came scurrying shortly and I nearly got into an… altercation but one of them recognized me and everyone got into submission pose. I told them to watch the bodies.”

Isn’t he a little sanguine? I don’t remember him being this way. I guess people could change for months or maybe he was always like this.

“I rather not, I still don’t understand the situation leading to this and letting them go has more perks for me in a way. Either way, I already made a plan on how to get the root of this.”

“Alright, you’re the boss… oh wait, by ranking, I’m slightly higher than you right?”

“Technically but I achieved a much more significant amount of merit than you do.”

“Alright boss!”

Watching them scurrying while carrying their fallen comrades, Stryklos and I could go and capture them but for reasons mainly that they may have something up to their sleeves to hindered us and there’s seems to be more than meets the eye, I refrained from doing so. We just need one or two at this moment.

We left and meet up with the guards and explained the situation. As for Stryklos victims, all of them had wounds that were on a level where it left them incapitated but it was not serious to the point of no recovery.

It was a sterile, precise and clean work like a trained butcher carving up his produces.

Seeing such work, it’s like gleaming the true nature of that man.

--

“You got ambushed!?”

Back at the house, all six of us were gathering, having our dinner as we discussed our day.

August was shocked hearing about my incident.

“Yup, ask me. I was the only one who arrived for the rescue. With innumerable amount of enemies besieging our beleaguered Ruigne, I strode after my facing my own trial of enemies and from-”

“Were you badly hurt?”

With a concern in her voice, Aeriasus looked at me with a worried expression as everyone was ignoring Stryklos grandiose verbose.

“Nope, I realized after a few attempt, they were trying to capture me so they abstained from aiming at my vital parts.”

After reviewing the battle, I realized that fact as every attempt at their attack was limited to my non-vital parts. I wonder what happen if I just let them capture me? No, that’s ridiculous; I probably get tortured real badly.

“Well, enough about me. It was bound to happen on one of these days with all the turmoil happening all around Eoum In fact, having you guys heard from the other summoned? They all had been through this during their time here. Now then, how about you guys?”

“We learned about the city current major issues.”

Herkaloi answered in short while eating.

“To be exact, when we met with the girl, she told us that she was actually a part of an anti-establishment group amongst the many anti-establishment groups that suddenly mushroomed three years ago. The groups varied from radical to mild.”

“She told us that just this morning; she attended a meeting with her group. After the meeting had ended, one of the cell leaders tried to assault her sexually. She escaped by jumping into the river and swam. Luckily she met us.”

After August expanded the content of their day, Aeriasus continued his narration. I realized with observation that Aeriasus eyes seems to dim as she narrated like one who can empathize what that girl had been through. I never knew what’s her history but like everyone else here, it’s probably one of a tragedy.

“Anti-Establishment groups huh?”

“Yeah, tomorrow we’re going to see her again so we can do something about these anti-establishment groups.”

I muttered that and Herkaloi mentioned their intention of seeing her again. It seems like not only Symokiva is suffering from an internal problem like this and what more it started three years ago. This just made my suspicion of external force even more concrete.

I wished our master infiltrator, Vefal Striden was here. If she was here, all the identities, the power structures and the political factors would be known by me. I could make plan after plan on how deal with these.

But I work with what I have.

--

“Sir Ruigne, There’s a letter from Reravir.”

The next day, sitting in the office; checking document after document, a guard knocked and promptly handed me a piece of paper and left.

Even though I was appointed as main representative, I was assigned to handle paperwork’s and anything administrative related work by Herkaloi.

It seems that in the group of 24 summoned, I’m known for ‘A good cook, a superb administrators and a penchant for being naked.’

Anyway, taking the letter and opening it, it was an invitation for a tea by Greidan the Elder, written in an informal manner.

(P.S- I heard what happen last night. It wasn’t a test from us.)

“Heh.”

Straight to the point, just like how I would do it.

Guess I get to enjoy another tea session.